La cooperazione internazionale in materia di politiche fiscali è profondamente disgregata. Incoerenze, lacune e inefficienze, che potrebbero essere eliminate se vi fosse una reale collaborazione tra gli Stati, hanno determinato significative perdite per decenni. Il presente articolo esamina le diverse organizzazioni internazionali che si occupano di cooperazione internazionale in materia tributaria, mettendo in risalto come i forum attraverso i quali la loro attività è promossa, non prevedano un adeguato sistema in grado di rafforzare effettivamente la cooperazione.

Per facilitare tale attività collaborativa, questo lavoro propone di creare un nuovo organismo internazionale attualmente assente nell’assetto delle politiche fiscali internazionali, volto al coordinamento tra i Paesi che hanno interessi di politica fiscale comuni e che si dovrebbe ispirare al “Like Minded Groups”. Tale forum consentirebbe di condividere gli stessi interessi alla cooperazione e di comprendere quali modifiche risultino necessarie.

Vengono identificate due principali attività che dovrebbero essere promosse: la limitazione dell’evasione fiscale e l’armonizzazione di diversi aspetti delle politiche fiscali. Tale nuovo modello dovrebbe garantire significativi vantaggi, promuo­vendo la cooperazione, riducendo la competitività e superando pressioni e condizionamenti interni ed esterni.

Alla luce delle recenti sfide intraprese in tale settore e delle difficoltà che incontrano le strutture internazionali nell’ambito della cooperazione internazionale, la proposta andrebbe presa seriamente in considerazione.

1. Introduction International cooperation in the making of tax policy is inadequate. Inconsistencies, loopholes, and ineffective mechanisms – which could be avoi­ded if real collaboration between countries existed – have created significant inefficiency losses for decades. There are various reforms that might be suggested to improve existing mechanisms of global tax governance, but in this Article we focus on the institutional infrastructure underlying international cooperation on tax issues. We argue that the current forums in which international tax cooperation is intended to occur do not provide an adequate platform for countries with similar interests to engage in a true collaborative effort. We propose a new institution currently missing from the international tax policy-setting arena: an informal forum for coordination between countries sharing similar interests. This forum would enable such countries that share similar interests to cooperate and reach understandings about necessary policy changes. The proposal is inspired by the model of “Like Minded Groups”, widely practiced in international organizations, where states whose interests converge establish a group to coordinate policies and create a negotiating bloc enabling them to achieve greater gains in negotiations with other parties. This Article emphasizes the maximization of national wel­fare, but it is possible that the cooperation envisioned would increase worldwide welfare as well. Current international institutions and forums specializing in the field of international taxation do not provide an effective platform for cooperation. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [hereinafter “OECD”], which is based on consensual decision-making, consists of countries with divergent and, in some cases, conflicting interests, which limits the ability of the organization to make progress on contentious issues and achie­ve significant changes to the status quo. The G20, a forum for heads of state with differing interests and no institutional support, cannot permanently play the role of initiator and leader of international tax policy changes. Additio­nally, the other bodies discussed in this Article do not effectively facilitate cooperation in tax policy matters. We call our proposed institution the “Tax Cooperation Forum” [hereinafter “TCF”]. Different groups of countries can form different TCFs to pro­mote their shared interests. One group of countries with similar tax interests that might establish such a forum could be the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and a few other developed countries that share similar interests. The TCF would be informal in nature and without any legal authority over members. This would allow members to opt in or out of the discussions in accordance with the [continua..]